1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope holding apparatus which holds a medical instrument such as an endoscope in place of a surgeon and which is capable of maintaining the held medical instrument at an arbitrary position.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, surgeries using an endoscope, for example, laparoscopic surgeries have been performed. A surgery using an endoscope has an advantage of being capable of reducing a burden on a patient, since the incision range is small compared with that in normal surgeries. A rigid endoscope for observing an inside of a body cavity is widely used for the above-described kind of surgery under the observation of an endoscope. Such a rigid endoscope is used by being inserted into an abdominal cavity through a guide member such as a trocar punctured into an abdominal wall. During the surgery, the endoscope is generally held by a surgeon or a supporting staff (assistant) called scopist. The surgeon or the scopist observes a desired site in a body cavity by performing advancing/retracting operation, turning operation, tilting operation and the like of the endoscope during the surgery.
In addition, in recent years, an endoscope holding apparatus that mechanically holds an endoscope or a treatment instrument (hereinafter, referred to as endoscope or the like) to be used in a laparoscopic surgery or the like in place of a surgeon or a scopist has been proposed. With the use of such an endoscope holding apparatus, efficient surgeries have been performed by reducing a load on the surgeon or scopist and reducing the number of the staff involved in the surgeries.
As a conventional configuration of the endoscope holding apparatus, for example, a holding arm apparatus has been proposed that includes a base section configured to be movable in a space available for a surgery (clinical room such as a surgery room or the like) and a holding arm attached to a support column portion placed vertically at the base section. The holding arm apparatus is provided with a holding instrument configured to hold the endoscope or the like.
The endoscope holding apparatus as described above is configured to be capable of attaching the endoscope or the like to the holding instrument and moving the endoscope or the like in up/down direction and horizontal direction with a light load in the state where the endoscope is held by the holding instrument, and capable of maintaining the endoscope or the like at a desired arbitrary position.
The endoscope holding apparatus thus configured provides effects of enabling the field of view of the endoscope to be stably ensured, enabling the field of view to be minutely changed, enabling the endoscope or the like to be moved only with a small amount of force as a surgeon or the like intends at the time of changing the field of view, and enabling a desired arbitrary position of the endoscope or the like to be surely maintained.
In the conventional endoscope holding apparatus, as an ingenuity for freely moving the held endoscope or the like with a light load and also surely maintaining the desired arbitrary position of the held endoscope or the like, the endoscope holding arm is configured to hold the endoscope or the like at one end and includes a counterweight at a predetermined site on the other end which is opposite to the one end across a support shaft.
Such a configuration enables the attached endoscope or the like to be held in good balance and to be moved rapidly with a light load, and also enables the endoscope or the like to be stopped on the spot when the load is not applied, to thereby be capable of surely maintaining the position of the endoscope or the like.
Various types of such endoscope holding apparatuses of what is called a counterweight balance type thus configured have been proposed by Japanese Patent No. 5265818, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 7-227398, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-258903, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-209096, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2009-297236, etc., for example, and put into practical use.